Someone has had enough.
Scroll on down to see original images of each page of the pamphlet with my translation alongside it. Where possible, I did my best to preserve the tone of the original and maintained as much of the original flow and punctuation as I could. However, it’s not always possible to do this and make ideas legible in English, so you’ll note places where I deviate a bit from the composer. I should also note that French Catholicism under the Ancien Regime had aspects all its own. Hence, some titles and offices were difficult to translate. I did my best, so enjoy.
A FEW REFLECTIONS
OF A PATRIOT
ON A BROCHURE ENTITLED:
MEMOIRE
Of the Chapter of the Metz Cathedral,
to the King
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(Mem.pag.1) The clergy of the Diocese of Metz (1) noted without alarm the decisions made in the sessions of the 4, 6, 7, 8 & 11 of the month of August. This may or may not be so, and without consequence; but it is not so with the truly indecent manner with which these Messieurs speak of the Decrees of the National Assembly. They hoped, they say, that reason’s calm would lead to a return to principles that a lively feeling of patriotism had caused to be lost from view. This hope is an outrage to the Assembly; it is a crime of lese-Nation; it is to suppose that the Decrees of the National Assembly, accepted by the King, stand in opposition to the principles of reason and its calm: it is the toxin of insurrection, a beacon of revolt.
Far from saying, as does the Author of the Memoire, the Clergy cannot, without prevarication, keep silent any longer, we say, with far more justice, that the Clergy cannot,
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(1) Why is this Memoir entitled: Memoir of the Chapter, & yet appears in the name of the Clergy of the whole Diocese?
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without prevarication, raise its voice against legitimate authority. To support their claims, they appeal in vain to the laws and ways of an ancient people.
(Pag. 2&3.) Whether or not Moses, servant of God & legislator in God’s name, granted tithes to the Tribe of Levi (idem), and whether or not, if one wishes, he also included forty-eight Cities, with the Suburbs and the fields surrounding them for a thousand paces, this establishes nothing in favor of the Metz Clergy. Moses made laws in Judea, just as the French Nation does in Paris: all Jews owe respect and submission to the former, just as all French owe it to the latter. It is undoubtedly just as ridiculous to invoke the principles of a Mosaic law that no longer exists as it would be to invoke Chinese laws to resolve differences of opinion among the people of Metz.
(Pag. 13.) The old law was replaced by the new law, as the Metz Chapter correctly states; & this new law was given neither by servants nor by Prophets of God, but by his own son, who undoubtedly understood just as well as Moses the intentions of his eternal Father. It is therefore within the precepts of this new Legislator that the noble Chapter should search in support of its claims.
I open the Gospel, and I see neither Prince nor Dean, nor Chapter with fur linings, pectoral crosses, or triple crimps. Rather, I see that the Ministers of the new priesthood fall into an obscure and indigent class; I hear their divine Master preach to them and prescribe poverty: you shall have neither gold nor silver, he says to them; the servant is not above his master, I send you as my father sent me: you shall take no thought for the morrow; you shall not take two coats; for food, you shall take what you find; if a City refuses you lodging, you shall pass through peacefully and without bitterness to another; if someone demands your coat, far from arguing, you will also give him your cloak. These are the instructions that Jesus gave
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to his Apostles & to his Disciples; it is word for word from the Gospel. Rather than say, as does the Chapter of Metz:
(Pag. 3.) God gave properties (to the Tribe of Levi). In God’s judgment, a moral body is therefore capable of ownership.
(Ibid.).....If (tithes) were harmful to agriculture……would infinite Wisdom have shown them preference? Would the all bounteous God have made a law of a scourge?
I say: if the all wise God had wanted the clergy of his new religion to possess tithes and lands, he would not have forbidden them to possess gold or silver, he would not have preached poverty to them as a virtue necessary to please him; he would not have said to them that whosoever does not renounce all that he possesses cannot be his disciple, instead of telling them, since all laborers are worthy of their hire, you shall eat what is given to you, he would have told them, for your clothing & your food, you will collect tithes and you will have lands. But he told them nothing of the sort; he prescribed the opposite. Hence, he did not want his Clergy to possess tithes, nor did he want them to have lands: this argument seems to be to be well stated and conclusive against the claims of the Metz clergy. But let us see if we have perhaps understood the Savior’s words in a way contrary to that in which the Apostles understood them; their conduct and writings will instruct us on this point.
I open the history, and I see the nascent Clergy of the Church divided into two classes; Apostles and Disciples. In popular opinion, Bishops replaced Apostles, and Priests replaced Disciples: both are, as a consequence, entitled by substitution to the rights of their predecessors. But none of the Apostles, none of the Disciples possessed either tithes or lands: both subsisted either on the charity of the faithful or the labor of their own hands, as the Apostle Paul himself said. The Clergy, successors to the Apostles & the Disciples, cannot have more rights than those they replaced: there is therefore no right to tithes, nor to land.
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Hence they cannot reasonably require anything other than clothing or food, and this by whatever means the generosity of the faithful provides it to them.
In light of these truths, the Clergy of the first centuries, undoubtedly the most beautiful & precious for religion, required neither tithes nor lands; there were neither palaces nor carriages nor taxes; they were only to teach the faithful through moving sermons & vivid examples. They lived underground, only coming out to engage in charity or speed to martyrdom. The three most beautiful centuries of the Church passed without Ministers having aspired to anything other than mutually excelling in the exercise of the most sublime virtues.
(Page 3.) It is therefore not without reason that the Author of the Memoir transports readers from the law of Moses to the reign of Constantine without a saying a word about Jesus Christ, author of the new law, & his Ministers who served from the death of the Son of God until Constantine; yet the Clergy had no other prerogative than to abandon all, to be stripped of everything, and to give their cares, their work & their blood for the love of a master who lived in humility, suffering & poverty. Thus the holy Fathers of the following centuries bitterly longed for the days when the heritage of the Church was to be found in caverns & on the gallows. In those days, they said, the Temples were ornamented in wood, but the virtuous Ministers were priests of gold. Wooden vessels, priests of gold. With riches, weakness entered the sanctuary; when the temple ornaments became valuable & the Clergymen richly endowed, the Church lost more in its Ministers than it gained in the ornamentation of its altars; golden vessels, priests of wood.
We know that Constantine showed great generosity toward the Church, & that he was followed by a great many Christians;
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but one wonders if the Clergy might not have been better served by refusing it? For we know, and with good cause, that the Clergy’s riches inflicted deeper wounds than all the persecutions of Paganism: the latter rendered them triumphant, while the former only covered them in shame.
I do not examine whether or not the Clergy can be landowners; this question was resolved by Decree of the National Assembly, accepted by the King. Faced with so perfectly irrefutable an authority as this, I know only silence and submission; but I will here make a very simple reflection. The honorable men of the Chapter saw Orders, Congregations, Abbeys, &etc., &etc. abolished; the possessions of these Orders, these Congregations, these Abbeys, &etc., &etc., &etc. were either donations or foundations or acquisitions; the State disposed of them, and the noble Chapter did not think it was prevaricating by keeping silent: at no time did it offer to join these Chapters, Bodies, Congregations, & Beneficiaries in making a complaint; the sovereign Courts recorded the abolition; no one thought to raise the cry of injustice; no one claimed that the Government exceeded its authority. Under what circumstances do they deny today the right of the assembled Nation to do things that nobody contested when one might, it seems, justly claim that the King’s religion was taken unawares? The reason is simple enough: nobody at that time touched the honorable men of the noble Chapter, and just like the Lords of Parliament, they only invoke religion & laws in support of their resistance when it impacts their personal interests.
Once again, I do not examine whether or not the Clergy can be landowners; but I know, and I say it boldly with all the canons of the Councils, with the holy Fathers of every century, with the Theologians of all ages, with all the Casuists who existed & who will exist, that the Clergy must & should only possess a minimum of goods; that apart from an honest set of clothing & a frugal diet, the rest belongs to the poor & must be distributed to them. Why
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should the Clergy complain if it is left as it was of old, and moreover, if it should only gain what it possesses through its own labor? To assign them a portion for their use, does it not ease the conscience? They will no longer be able, they say, to give alms as before; there will no longer be an obligation; & as their conscience will not, on this point, trouble them any longer, they can peacefully say in their powerlessness, just as the Apostle Saint Peter said to the lame man who asked alms of him: I have neither gold nor silver; I give you all that I possess, the blessing of a just Master who will not punish for not having been rich, but who will surely punish for not having submitted to the decrees of a legitimate authority, he who commands to obey to the Powers that be, though they be infidels, even though they be harsh, & who, in addition to teaching, also provided an example.
What good is it to cite the Works of the good Bishop of Nancy & Abbot Maury? These two illustrious defenders of the ecclesiastical cause developed their reasoning with all the means that their sources could provide: we might even say that to come away victorious, they lack only to have embraced the right cause. They said, they and Mr. Thiebault, Priest of Saint Croix, much more than the Memoir of the noble Chapter did. The Assembly, however, did not judge their means sufficient, since with a great majority of votes, they decreed precisely the contrary. This decree seemed just to the supreme Head of the Nation, who honored it with his acceptance. After this, what could be the goal of the noble Chapter by profusely spreading a Memoir so seditious as to render it pointless? Could Saint Paul, in all his charity, judge their motives worthy of the evangelical calling? After the Decree’s acceptance, is any complaint not a revolt?
To conceal this revolt, it is true, they disguise themselves in a semblance of humanity.
(Page 10.) Is it not the height of barbarity, they say, to tear the elderly of both sexes away from that to which they have become accustomed over an entire lifetime?......We could see monks
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of all ages expelled from their monasteries and forced to flee in fear back to their families, &etc.
O Messieurs! You move a little too fast! Why were you not carried away by this great sense of charity & humanity at the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Antonines, the Grammontines, the Celestines, & especially the numerous chapters who were formerly regular & today are secular? Moreover, who has said anything to you, up to now, about sending monks of all ages back to their families? In decreeing that the property of the Clergy belongs to the Nation, did not the Assembly also agree that the Nation would provide an honest living to the Clergy? And as a measure of its sincere intentions, did it not set salaries at a minimum of 1200 livres when the Decimators & Chapters had first paid 300, then 500, then finally, after much effort, 750 livres? Do you think the Priests, to whom you begrudgingly give 750 livres, are joining with you in good faith by signing a complaint against a Decree that provides them 1200 livres?
(Page 11.) “But the loss of our properties renders the Owners unable to pay debts contracted for their investiture”....
O!.....but you do not yet know what your portion will be in the distribution of honoraria, you know only that you will make an honest living. If you had assumed only the debts necessary for your investiture, with order and frugality, you could have found the means to pay them. Your creditors, who run the risk of default should you die after receiving your loan, would not hesitate to facilitate your payments. But if you assumed debts for any other reason, it was a mistake for which you should blame yourselves before God and man, but for which the Nation is no more accountable than it is responsible.
(Page 12.) Greater evils await us: if we are stripped of our properties, religion will be destroyed.
It has always been the ecclesiastical way to view the
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interests of religion as inseparable from its Ministers; as if the religion that Heaven so benevolently gave us has not often had Ministers that Heaven could only have given us in anger. What! because the French Nation has taken upon itself to provide for the decency of the church & the honest living of church Ministers, religion now stands at the edge of the precipice! What! Because the Clergy will no longer be landowners, religion will perish! But these honorable men no longer remember that this holy religion was founded on poverty; that its only honor lies in poverty; that it can only be preserved in poverty; that one can only be its disciple, much less its Minister, in a spirit of poverty; that its divine Author cherishes nothing so much, recommends nothing as much, as poverty. They forget, these honorable men, that all the labors of hell will not prevail against this holy religion as long as the shepherds and the sheep remain receptive to the inspiration of a Master who was born, lived & died poor; that the state of honest mediocrity to which the Clergy has been reduced is that which it should have chosen for itself; this is what the wisest of Kings insistently recommends (I) as the way to avoid the misfortunes the Gospel directs at riches & against the rich.
Ah! If this holy religion could have been destroyed by the wickedness of men, it would have ceased existing long ago; for those who, by their calling, should have worked to preserve it, have truly done all they could to destroy it, beginning with a few Popes and ending with a few Clerics.
(Page 13.) “As soon as public worship depends on an incertain and degrading salary, impiety will cheapen holy offices.
To view, as do these Messieurs, the salary assigned by the Nation for divine worship as if it were yet undecided
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(I) Do not give me riches and poverty.
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is an outrage and a calumny against the Nation; it is to complain before being sick, it is to speak insults for the singular pleasure of doing it.
To see this as something degrading is to pose an enigma that is difficult to solve. One cannot see why, in effect, it is any more degrading for the honorable Canons to receive 50 livres from the State Treasury than it is to receive them from their farmer. In truth, I am convinced that if we had left the Prebends at the same level of revenue they are at today, with the only difference being that it was paid from the public treasury, I dare affirm that the noble Chapter would have made no complaint.
Impiety, they say, will cheapen holy offices.
Impiety, in this case, will only do what the high piety of the Chapters & Decimators do daily before our eyes. Indeed, is it not these honorable men who pay only an indecently modest salary to congruent Priests? The Priests, however, whether they receive a congruent or incongruent portion, are ordinarily none the worse off. Indeed, nearly all services in the Cathedrals are done by those on cheap wages, even sometimes by laymen, while the only care that most of these fur-lined Canons take for the welfare of this holy religion is to occupy their stalls during a portion of the canonical offices (I).
We must provide for the welfare of the religion. Yes, without a doubt: the Nation felt it strongly, for it decreed to provide for it. But what do we mean by welfare of the religion? Is it a vain apparatus that is often foreign to the Nation & sometimes even opposed to it? Without doubt, no.
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(I) When within a Parish there is a Priest, a Vicar, and a Chaplain, I am certain to find them in the service of the Church, although they may also be charged with the confessional, sermons, catechists, and visiting the sick. If I enter the choir of a Chapter composed of fifty Canons, how many will I find there although they have no other duty than to assist in offices?
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I enter a Cathedral, I see a Swiss in grand uniform, and I imagine he is there to stand against indecency in a holy place, against conversations, tramping around, filthy beasts, &etc. &etc. Not at all: all these things occur before his eyes without any attempt to deal with them because he is only there for the glory of the honorable men of the Chapter. Would the welfare of the divine religion suffer much if it had this one employee less? I say as much for the lay Musicians & Cantors. Would we not be more edified to hear the good Canons sing majestically in chorus a Masse in well quartered notes & the same with Vespers than to see them idle spectators from among the counter tenors and false basses?
We are invited to public prayer so that the union of our vows be more capable of bending to the justice of the Lord. The people must be in a position to unite its voice with that of the Ministers. But how can the people unite with symphonies it never hears & that often seem unworthy of the majesty of the sanctuary? No, despite the beauty of the music, my devotion has never been so tenderly moved as when I attend the offices of the Capuchin Friars or the Gathered Sisters: the former because they amuse me, the latter because they edify me. If one wants instruments, the organ seems preferable to me, for it is more majestic and less costly.
[Page 13.] Is there a father who would ever permit his children to enter into such a debased state?
In what state of mind was the Author of the Memoire when he wrote this incomprehensible passage? & how, amongst all this respectable Chapter was there not found a single man to stand against this odd expression? What! Because the Clergy will no longer be landowners, the priesthood is debased! What! The glory of the priesthood consists in the lands of those to whom they are endowed! What! The worth of Ministers before the altar is measured on the scales of their income! O! If this is true,
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poor Priests, poor Vicars, poor Chaplains, poor Monks, poor Bishops of the first centuries, poor Apostles, poor St. Peter, & to sum it up in a word, poor Jesus Christ, how your state was debased! And one wonders how there were ever found men in such great numbers who traded the riches of the Throne for the debased state of Evangelical poverty! O children of men! of what grave absurdities are you capable when greed blinds you?
Until now, people believed one only debased oneself by committing crimes, and from one end of the earth to the other, people repeated: there is no vice in poverty. But the honorable men of the Chapter teach us today that one’s state is debased when he is not a rich landowner. Take them at their word if you wish; for me, I have no difficulty believing that one renders an essential service to religion when one places Ministers in the fortunate impossibility of displaying the scandalous & indecent worldliness for which we reproach them only too justly; these sumptuous palaces, these shining carriages, these hairstyles with long forelocks, these double and triple crimps worthy at most of a worldly dandy or an actor in an opera.
[Ibid.] The well of Ministers will run dry.
I would like to believe that, whatever their vocation in the ecclesiastical State, those who entered holding only their family titles and the hope of an income large enough to enable them to satisfy all their fantasies will choose to renounce a state in which they will no longer be able to fulfill these fateful hopes; and should this be the case, religion can but emerge victorious; the people will have one less scandal before their eyes; and the State will recover branches that, without this, had become scandalously useless. How fortunate if this suffices to separate from the sanctuary all subjects who do not bear the spirit of the Lord; were there but one person of this sort, it would be one too many. But those who want to live like Churchmen in the ecclesiastical State will never be tempted to murmur against this Decree of the Assembly. By the
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word of Jesus Christ, they will hope with confidence that for those who seek the Kingdom of God & justice, the rest is faithfully provided by he who nourishes the birds of the Sky, who sow not & reap not. By Decree of the Nation, they will be assured of an honest living, & they require no more; I find proof of it in the Clergy of our day, & even in a few Deputies to the National Assembly. Those of Ourlord Bishops, of our Priests & of our Canons who are cited as examples of virtue accepted a salary less than that guaranteed to them by the Decree of November 02.
People require, so they say, something imposing, & to give them respectable heads of Clergy, they should seem rich in their eyes.
People require, I conclude, something imposing & that inspires respectful admiration. But one should also conclude with me that opulence by itself is a fleeting resource. In the beautiful days of nascent Christianity when Ministers were saintly, they did not need titles like Count, like Marquis, like Baron; they did not need palaces, or carriages, or liveries to inspire people’s veneration: their virtues, with their modest simplicity, were more than sufficient. This will continue as virtue becomes the legacy of the successors; it is respected and cherished wherever it is found.
I had a thought of late in which everyone can share……..I saw a Capuchin (I) pass by in the street, bent under the burden of time & austerity, who for more than fifty years edified both the city and countryside, & I said to myself: if, as before, virtue culminated in great responsibility and this respectable old man found himself at the head of the Clergy of Metz, would he need
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(I) Father Heliodorus
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a six-horse carriage, a title like Prince of the Holy Empire, a palace capable of housing a regiment of Infantry, & a legion of people at his beck and call in order to be respected? When Monsieur de Montmorency, in his sumptuous apparel, travels from Metz to Frescati, people see him; they say: it is My Lord, & they go on their way; but if my Capuchin Bishop visited his Diocese with his poor sandals & his coarse habit, people would crowd his way; they would prostrate before him, they would insistently seek his blessing; they would listen to him as if to an oracle, & would respect him like an Apostle.
I pass quickly over a large part of the Memoir; I do not share in the fears of the honorable Chapter regarding the future administration of the Clergy’s goods, for this administration will take place in full view of the provincial Assemblies, from whom I expect much wisdom and justice.
Along with all of France, I simply can not accept the accuracy of the wise Bishop of Nancy’s calculations. I can not believe that he seriously thought that the goods of the Clergy under their control were 93 million less than expenditures for church costs & Priesthood endowments, & this is why I can not believe these things. It is because all Members of the Clergy make their living under the present regime; it is because there are a great many who are richly endowed; there are many who are very richly endowed; there are some who are too richly endowed; and apart from this, there are many rich Profits from the Treasuries; from this I conclude, without going into detail, that there must be a considerable remainder for the Nation after having provided for the honest living of the Clergy & expenditures for the divine religion.
I arrive finally at the end of my undertaking & I find myself at the end of the Memoir.
[Page 31.] There I read the words, The greatest sacrifices will not cost us. Alas! Messieurs, you are only being asked to submit to the common law of the Nation.
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[Page 32.] Then I read…Today we are French; yes, Messieurs, you are French. Therefore you must respectfully submit to French law; you must cease to demand Papal bulls, certificates from Emperors, & everything that bears the odious stamp of privilege, for through a very wise decree, the French Nation has banished them in all parts of the Kingdom.
[Ibid.] Then I read, we ask for no other considerations than those which God prescribed for us.
I do not know if God prescribed considerations for you, but I know that he commands you to obey those whom he has clothed with authority to command you; and he declares that to resist the laws they make is to resist him.
[Ibid.] Then I read, we consider only the altar, the poor, the widow & the orphan.
The Assembly took note of your considerations, for all of these are included in its decree, & I add one thing of which no one is ignorant: that the churches whose upkeep & decoration were the responsibility of decimators have always been the worst maintained & the most indecently ornamented; as for the offerings, let us cut to the chase, the stables of Our Lordships were Palaces compared to country Churches; one will find ornamentation there (I blush to say it, but the truth forces me) far inferior to horse blankets, & linens that they would not have wished to use in their own officiation.
[Page 32.] Then I read, let us not require the sacrifice of property; it is not ours. O! Messieurs! may you eternally remember this truth which escapes you, & remember that the decree of the Assembly against which you revolt says no more than this.
[Ibid.] I continue reading, we should violate neither the intentions of the founders nor the donors, &etc.
But, Messieurs, was it really the intention of the Founders &
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Donors that the Cathedral Chapter be established as a noble Chapter, & that Commoners, despite their merit, be forever forbidden to receive prebends, and this only because they are Commoners? Moreover, have you not held meetings in your Chapters & in Churches that depend on these? have you not reduced the foundations? have you not combined several into one under pretext that their income was insufficient? Thus you have taken it upon yourselves to fulfill the intentions of the Founders only in part. How do you dare have the effrontery to argue against the right of the assembled Nation to do things you believed yourselves able to do jointly with your Bishop? Finally, I read:
[Pag. 32.] We are Priests. Fine. We have given all for Country. What have you given, Honorable men of the Chapter? where is your patriotic offering? I see many on the list of benefits. I recently saw the Dame Canonesses of Maubeuge for more than 140,000 liv, but I see nothing yet from the noble Chapter of Metz. But, o Heavens! should I believe what my eyes witnessed? did they not fail me in that moment? We are all willing to die for justice. You are all willing to die for justice, Messieurs! is it really in reason’s calm that you give us these assurances? Either this sentence has meaning or it does not. If it does not, I relegate it to the contempt that it deserves & that it inspires; if it does, I do not believe it can be anything other than this, & in my own eyes, you might as well have said: the Decree of the Assembly declares that are not landowners; this law hurts our pride & our greed. We would rather die in a state of revolt rather than obey as Priests, faithful to Religion, to the Nation, to the King & to the Law. What say you, Honorable Ministers of the God of peace, of poverty, of humility, of charity? would it bother you if we accepted your challenge?
[Page 32.] We should not violate the intentions of the Founders & Donors.
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But be assured, children spoiled by a mother who was for too long weak and indulgent toward you. The Nation that let you get away with so much will not suddenly come down against you in keeping with the gravity of your misdeeds. It spared the Vacation Court of the Rouen Parliament; it spared the assembled Chambers of the Metz Parliament. Guilty of the same crime, you will share an equal part in its mercy; but as your status of Priests renders your insurrection doubly condemnable, it is not just that you should be so favorably treated. The Nation could, as a fair mother, summon you to her knees to receive a maternal thrashing and a lively exhortation to be better behaved; she would ban forever your use of the lavish title noble Chapter; & it would be a great indulgence on her part were she not to substitute that of Chapter in revolt against the Nation, against the King & against the Law. She would forbid the use of your pectoral crosses as a tangible sign of a vainglory too visible & too visibly opposed to the humble modesty that should everywhere be the singular privilege of Ministers of the divine religion. She would require you to decorate an altar so that it stands for ages in the eyes of the Faithful as proof of your reform, & to distribute abundant alms to the poor, to the orphan & to the widow, whose interests you have so tenderly espoused in your seditious memoir; she will distinguish you in the distribution of funds as you distinguished your submission to her decrees; she will command you to keep to your chambers for a couple of months, forbidden to come out, except to faithfully attend to the divine office; & may it please God that this retreat, forcing you to turn inward in a Christian way, should render you beneficial to God & to Man, for all time & for all eternity. May it be so.
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IN PARIS, BY THE IMPRIMERIE NATIONALE